Collin Jinks is an award-winning pianist and a native of Minnesota. He began his formal musical training under Dr. Jo Anne Link at the nationally recognized Crocus Hill Studios. Jinks earned his Bachelor of Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of piano department chair Yoshikazu Nagai. Additional undergraduate studies were conducted with Dr. Jack Winerock and Dr. Steven Spooner. Jinks pursued his graduate studies with department chair and director of graduate musical studies, Dr. James Giles, at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, where he was a graduate assistant. His graduate work was generously supported by the Eckstein Fund.

An accomplished performer, Jinks has appeared across the United States and abroad. He has appeared in faculty recital at the Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Festival in Maiori, Italy, has been a finalist of the venerated National Public Radio show From the Top, and holds top prizes from the Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford, The International Steinway Concerto Competition at the Colburn School, and The Schubert Club Competition. Jinks is a Chopin Prize Recipient from the Chopin Foundation of the United States and first-prize winner of the Music Teachers National Association National Piano Competition.

During Jinks’ residency at Northwestern University, he was awarded first prize in the 2024 Pauline Lindsey Endowed Scholarship Competition. Subsequently, he was the recipient of the 2025 Thaviu-Issak Endowed Prize in Piano, deemed the Bienen School of Music’s top distinction in piano performance. In masterclass, Jinks has performed under esteemed artists John Perry, Enrico Elisi, Leon Fleisher, Vladimir Feltsman, Sergei Babayan, Olga Kern, Barry Douglas, Kevin Kenner, Boris Slutsky, Bernadene Blaha, Yong Hi Moon, Inna Faliks, Awadagin Pratt, Garrick Ohlsson, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

Jinks has appeared as a soloist with the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, Minnetonka Symphony, Minnehaha Repertory Orchestra, and the La Crosse Symphony. His performances have been aired on Classical Minnesota Public Radio.

A devoted teacher whose teaching spans nearly a decade, Jinks has worked with students at all stages of musical development. At Northwestern University, he provided instruction for advanced non-major undergraduates through Northwestern University’s non-major piano program. His students have gone on to participate in summer music programs such as the Interlochen Arts Camp Advanced Piano Program through a competitive audition process. Jinks’ teaching is grounded in the conviction that the piano, more than any instrument, extends far beyond the limitations of the instrument itself. By virtue of its capabilities and as a tool, it provides a means of access to the innate expressive sentiments imbued in the human spirit. Among highly gifted individuals, this desire and need to express oneself is overwhelmingly evident from a young age. Whether or not a student may be aware, it is the duty of any great teacher to do their utmost to bring a student to this point of departure. Jinks’ teaching philosophy approaches musical training as first, a fundamental item of realization - what a student can produce via the hands, and aspires towards something that is a vehicle for deep expression and catharsis that will last for a lifetime. In young and developing students, it is this initial self-expression via the keyboard that becomes actualized into something much larger and life-affirming. It is these convictions that, when discovered through music, provide students with the ability to recognize and identify beauty in themselves and, by doing so, preserve beauty in our world. Jinks currently maintains a private studio and is accepting students. Inquiries can be made here.

Of all the gifts with which individuals may be endowed, none emerges earlier than musical talent.

-Howard Gardner